In recent years, “inclusion” has been a buzzword at this University, but concrete steps on making our University more inclusive in reality have been limited. However, Emory students have recently taken action to make that word a little more real.
The 48th Legislature of the Student Government Association (SGA) unanimously passed an amendment on Monday that will change all instances of gender-specific language within the Constitution — such as the pronouns “he” or “she” and “his” or “hers” — to “they,” “them” and “their” in order to be more inclusive towards students with non-binary gender identities. The bill must now win a majority in a University-wide referendum in order to take effect.
We applaud this genuine effort for greater inclusion in the Emory community. The continued normative use of the gender binary in our institutions is a manifestation of gender prejudice and exclusivity against people living outside of the binary genders of “man” or “woman.” Pronouns such as “they,” besides being used as a specific set of pronouns, are able to act as a neutral way to account for the unaccountable variety of different gender identities.
The use of the singular “they” is disputed almost exclusively on grammatical grounds. Its opponents, pointing fingers at grade school English textbooks, adamantly claim that “they” is grammatically incorrect. Strictly speaking on traditional grammatical grounds, they have a point.
However, there already exists in spoken English a common precedent of using the singular they, which has been used as a part of modern English since Shakespeare, and examples of its use can be found in the works of Jane Austen and Walt Whitman, among others.
Finally — and most importantly — when considering the actual lived identities of people, it is disingenuous, not to mention disrespectful, to claim that the constructed rules of grammar prevent recognizing non-binary genders. Besides, it is only a matter of time before the rules of grammar change to accommodate the inclusivity of non-binary gender identities.
We at the Wheel hope that the University recognizes the importance of extending inclusivity to all members of our community and will vote to pass the upcoming referendum, acting on one step in a long process of furthering the work of gender inclusivity at Emory and disrupting longstanding patterns of prejudice.
We also hope that the goal of gender equality does not end simply at language that is gender-inclusive. Trans*, genderqueer and gender nonconforming individuals are still discriminated against off and on Emory’s campus. We encourage the University and SGA to ensure that their efforts to be inclusive of all genders extends to a commitment to educating students about these identities and serving as helpful allies.
The above staff editorials represent the majority opinion of the Wheel’s editorial board.
The Emory Wheel was founded in 1919 and is currently the only independent, student-run newspaper of Emory University. The Wheel publishes weekly on Wednesdays during the academic year, except during University holidays and scheduled publication intermissions.
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I would like to respectfully register a question related to this article: as we become more and more sensitive of the ways that people are excluded, offended, triggered, etc, the complexity of social niceties needed to avoid those harms increases. While doing something as simple as changing language from the binary him/her to the neutral they is obviously not a problem, I wonder about how things will progress from here. Do we continue to add more and more social expectations for majority populations designed to protect the feelings of minority populations? I am reminded of Tumblr and the internet stereotypes of individuals that have chosen to adopt new, unique identities/pronouns, and then place the expectation on society to conform to those norms in order not to offend the minority involved. In short, where does it end? If transgendered people on the Emory campus collectively adopted a new pronoun to describe their transitory state, should the rest of us be expected or compelled to adapt our norms for them? Similarly, say that then within the trans-gendered demographic, a further splitting of male-to-female and female-to-male pronouns is advocated. Do we adopt those as well?
My point is, while I understand and respect the desire to show others the respect they deserve, I question the feasibility of this march towards total political correctness by virtue of continuously re-educating the majority population of the ways in which increasingly smaller demographics are offended.
I don’t understand what your point is. Are you saying that you are concerned that if we acknowledge the need to treat some people better, we might actually have to acknowledge other minority groups as well? By your logic, we might as well have not ended segregation because that meant we had to teach the white majority to work alongside people of color, and that has been just too difficult. After all, it’s just a slippery slope until everyone gets treated fairly, right?
Political correctness is a meaningless term for people afraid of losing the status quo.
Your point in your original post is very clear; I’m not sure how someone could have missed it. Glad to see you didn’t attempt to rebut the straw men.